Where Does Art Reside ?

Art Quote for the Day

I teach a painting class at our local community college and have been doing this every Friday morning, from 9AM to Noon, for 20 years. People have come and gone, but there is a core a people who have come back every semester for most of those years. I started doing this exercise that I know I’ve mentioned before. I call it the Blurred Slide Exercise. I’ve done it in many many other classes that I teach as well and the exercise gets great results in any media; pencil, oils, watercolors, pastels, even COLLAGE!

Every now and again we will take a break, lay all the paintings down together and look ….. everyone , of course is enthralled with the process and loves the results of everyone’s but their own! And this is where one of the students said something really profound that I will use from now on. She said, “we all have to learn to love OUR OWN style.” Such a simple concept… but so valuable. We all see the art that has already been made by the ‘greats’ OR we have an idea in our head of how things are supposed to look. Obviously when our work doesn’t turn out like the pre-conceived notion we tend to not like it. Instead of comparing what we’ve done to the original, we need to see the common thread that happens in each and every thing we do and accept that. Develop THAT. When we do this blurred slide exercise it happens again and again. Whomever is painting , however abstract it is to start out , we are all starting to recognize each other’s distinctive styles. Whether it’s the color palette used, the brushstrokes, the size of the canvas even…. each painting is exactly what it’s supposed to be. That artist’s that painted it and IT’S ALWAYS GOOD! We stand there for the longest time , looking at these works in progress and then when they’re finished, and comment on them. It’s a really interesting phenomenon….. we just want to look and look and look because there is so much richness in each one.

If I were to develop an on-line class that would let you do this exercise for yourself would you all be interested? stay tuned……